Rescue Equipment

In an extraordinarily cruel twist of fate, when the Sylmar earthquake struck Feb. 9, 1971, one of the structures that sustained the worst damage housed the cardiac-care patients at the Veterans Hospital. Dozens of heart patients were trapped inside when the building collapsed. As a reporter for The Times, I was one of the first outsiders to reach the scene, and I watched as one victim after another was pulled from the rubble.

NEW DELHI - Nearly 600 people have been killed by devastating monsoon flooding in northern India and 50,000 remained stranded Friday with more rain in the forecast, authorities said. Flooding in the mountainous Himalayan state of Uttarakhand coincided with a period when 60,000 Sikh and Hindu pilgrims were trekking to four sacred sites in the region. Many pilgrims, tourists and local residents were trapped as roads, bridges and houses were washed away. “We would do the best we can to evacuate all those stranded,” Air Marshal S.B. Deo told reporters.

Pasadena firefighters rescued a man whose arm became stuck in a conveyor belt Wednesday morning at the Salvation Army warehouse on Waverly Drive. The worker, identified only as a man in his 30s, suffered major trauma to his arm and was taken to a local hospital, Pasadena Fire Department spokeswoman Lisa Derderian said. “His arm was black and blue, and he was in extreme pain,” Derderian said. “We're hoping [doctors] will be able to save the arm.” A group of 11 firefighters arrived at the warehouse at 11:45 a.m. and used rescue equipment to free the man's arm after nearly 30 minutes.

Pasadena firefighters rescued a man whose arm became stuck in a conveyor belt Wednesday morning at the Salvation Army warehouse on Waverly Drive. The worker, identified only as a man in his 30s, suffered major trauma to his arm and was taken to a local hospital, Pasadena Fire Department spokeswoman Lisa Derderian said. “His arm was black and blue, and he was in extreme pain,” Derderian said. “We're hoping [doctors] will be able to save the arm.” A group of 11 firefighters arrived at the warehouse at 11:45 a.m. and used rescue equipment to free the man's arm after nearly 30 minutes.

Firefighters from five Ventura County agencies converged on a ramshackle corrugated aluminum building at the Point Mugu Naval Air Station on Friday, crawling in through walls, dropping in from holes cut in the roof and bursting through doors, in search of four "trapped" people.

Volunteer firefighters in Mt. Baldy were scrambling Tuesday to replace about $43,000 worth of rescue equipment and firefighting tools stolen from their station over the weekend. The stolen items included a generator, ropes for rescuing stranded hikers, two hydraulic devices for prying open vehicles, a pump for fighting fires with swimming pool water, and tools to clear dry vegetation and build fire breaks.

Six firefighters from the Orange County Fire Department station in Seal Beach received some first-hand experience on earthquake preparedness when they spent a week in Mexico City after it had been struck by two killer earthquakes last month. Capt. Steven Shomber, second in command of the crew that went to Mexico, described the destruction he encountered as "eerie" and "like the Twilight Zone." "We went down there . . . and came back better prepared for something that might happen here."

NEW DELHI - Nearly 600 people have been killed by devastating monsoon flooding in northern India and 50,000 remained stranded Friday with more rain in the forecast, authorities said. Flooding in the mountainous Himalayan state of Uttarakhand coincided with a period when 60,000 Sikh and Hindu pilgrims were trekking to four sacred sites in the region. Many pilgrims, tourists and local residents were trapped as roads, bridges and houses were washed away. “We would do the best we can to evacuate all those stranded,” Air Marshal S.B. Deo told reporters.

"One of the first things I saw was a taxi with a body strapped to the top," photographer Andrei Gorelovsky said Saturday upon his return from the earthquake-ravaged Armenian city of Leninakan. "You see many such cars--there is a shortage of coffins." There were other bodies, said the photographer for the Evening Moscow newspaper. They were lying unclaimed on the rubble-strewn streets, "and no one knows who they are."

People who fly the northern route from Europe to North America look down from their warm airplanes and try not to think of crash-landing in that vast, white nothingness. Every day, 125 commercial airliners cross the Canadian arctic. It's a beautiful land, but a harsh one, unforgiving even to those who live in it and are prepared. Someone tossed there by fate, without training or proper equipment, might be better off dead.

EGG HARBOR TOWNSHIP, N.J. - The rain was falling in sheets, the winds were relentless, and Fire Chief Bill Danz was fuming. Dozens of people along the bay that fronts this sprawling coastal community were determined to ride out Hurricane Sandy in their homes - until the flood came lapping at their front doors. "We told them yesterday. We told them the day before," Danz, carrying a walkie-talkie and wearing a yellow slicker, said angrily. "Now we have to put our people in harm's way to go get them.

The remains of all four miners missing from the devastating explosion at the Upper Big Branch mine were found by rescue crews late Friday night, ending a desperate, four-day search for men who authorities now say were killed by the blast Monday afternoon. "We did not receive the miracle we prayed for," West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin III said at a news conference at 12:30 a.m. Eastern time. The discovery of the four bodies brings the total death toll from the explosion Monday at the mine to 29, making it the worst mining disaster in nearly 40 years.

President Obama promised swift delivery of rescue assistance and humanitarian aid to the island nation of Haiti this morning in the wake of a devastating earthquake there that has left hundreds dead and many more missing. Haitians will have the "full support" of the U.S. as they work to rescue those trapped and to gather food, water and medicine in the crucial early hours of the recovery, the president said. "This is a time when we are reminded of the common humanity we all share," Obama told reporters in the White House Diplomatic Reception Room.

October 10, 2005 | Mubashir Zaidi, Paul Watson and Shankhadeep Choudhury, Special to The Times

President Pervez Musharraf pleaded for international help Sunday to hurry rescue equipment and relief supplies to tens of thousands of earthquake victims in Pakistan, while desperate survivors begged for government aid that still had not arrived in large areas of the quake zone.

Volunteer firefighters in Mt. Baldy were scrambling Tuesday to replace about $43,000 worth of rescue equipment and firefighting tools stolen from their station over the weekend. The stolen items included a generator, ropes for rescuing stranded hikers, two hydraulic devices for prying open vehicles, a pump for fighting fires with swimming pool water, and tools to clear dry vegetation and build fire breaks.

In an extraordinarily cruel twist of fate, when the Sylmar earthquake struck Feb. 9, 1971, one of the structures that sustained the worst damage housed the cardiac-care patients at the Veterans Hospital. Dozens of heart patients were trapped inside when the building collapsed. As a reporter for The Times, I was one of the first outsiders to reach the scene, and I watched as one victim after another was pulled from the rubble.

The remains of all four miners missing from the devastating explosion at the Upper Big Branch mine were found by rescue crews late Friday night, ending a desperate, four-day search for men who authorities now say were killed by the blast Monday afternoon. "We did not receive the miracle we prayed for," West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin III said at a news conference at 12:30 a.m. Eastern time. The discovery of the four bodies brings the total death toll from the explosion Monday at the mine to 29, making it the worst mining disaster in nearly 40 years.

President Obama promised swift delivery of rescue assistance and humanitarian aid to the island nation of Haiti this morning in the wake of a devastating earthquake there that has left hundreds dead and many more missing. Haitians will have the "full support" of the U.S. as they work to rescue those trapped and to gather food, water and medicine in the crucial early hours of the recovery, the president said. "This is a time when we are reminded of the common humanity we all share," Obama told reporters in the White House Diplomatic Reception Room.

Following the traditions that bind together those who work the sea, scores of volunteer boaters put out in their crafts Wednesday, braving darkness and the flames of burning jet fuel in a futile search for survivors of TWA Flight 800. The flat, black sea looked like a floating city of lights near the downed 747 jetliner, as small craft mingled with Coast Guard cutters during the search. Helicopters churned overhead.

The helicopter hovers inches above the waves while a rescuer, tethered to the chopper, tosses a loop-shaped device to a victim in the water. The aircraft then rises, plucking the victim from the ocean on the end of a 40-foot line. The rescue is a success. That scenario was played over and over Thursday as police helicopter pilots from four agencies worked with Huntington Beach Marine Safety officers to perfect a maneuver that can save lives in swift-water rescues.